


Responsibility

by starbox



Series: Damian [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bat Family, Damian Wayne Feels, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Violence, Gen, Jason Todd feels, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbox/pseuds/starbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jason gets severely injured he's guaranteed to ruin someone's day. This time he specifically ruins Damian's day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my "Damian" series one-shots, but I think I'll actually have a part two to this particular one because it has the semblance of plot. Plus Damian has yet to get a real kick-ass scene... and he and Jason need to work out some issues.

Damian was just stepping out of the shower when he heard the unusual sound of dishes ungraciously clattering in the kitchen. He rubbed a towel over his spiky hair and listened as the sound of dishes subsided and was replaced by running footsteps. _Something was amiss._  
    He dressed quickly, grabbing a random Gotham sports jersey lying among his clean clothes. ( _Was it one of Grayson’s old ones?)_ He decided to head straight to the cave and ducked into the back staircase from Father’s room.  
    Damian heard someone yelling when he was only a level away from the cave and identified the hoarse-sounding voice as that of Todd. Father was giving calm, quick commands and Alfred was apparently following them wordlessly.  
    Damian stopped in the doorway to survey the scene. Father and Alfred were struggling to hold down a bloody and raging Todd, who had apparently been dragged from off of his damaged motorcycle. Damian noticed Alfred noticing him and looking at Father in indecision.  
     _Pennyworth still thinks I’m a child..._  
    Damian stepped forward decisively. “What should I do, Father?”  
    Bruce turned to him with a grim expression. “Hold Jason down so that Alfred can grab the med kits he needs.”  
    “Yes, sir.”  
    Damian ran to the other side of the medical table and latched onto Todd’s struggling left arm.  
    “Is he badly injured?”  
    “Only mentally. It seems the Scarecrow is involved in the river side murders.”  
    “So if I sit on him...?”  
    Bruce nearly smiled.  
    Damian jumped on top of Todd and began ratcheting on the table’s straps. Jason’s face was bruised and he had scratches everywhere ( _when did he not_ ), but the injury was clearly psychological. His eyes were rolling back in his head and couldn't be seen clearly. He wouldn’t stop mumbling  “No... no, don’t... why aren’t you... no, no” and then yelling as if in pain. Damian swore he heard Jason cry his father’s name once as well. Whether Bruce noticed or not, he didn’t react.      
    Alfred jabbed multiple needles into Jason’s arms after cutting off the majority of his leather biker jacket. One was for an IV nutrient supply, one was for a tranquilizer that was specially formulated to work with the antidote, and the last was the antidote for the Scarecrow’s fear toxin.  
    Alfred wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m worried, Master Bruce, that the current antidote may not work as effectively as we wish it to...”  
    “So you think it’s a different strain as well?” replied Father.  
    “A different strain?” asked Damian.  
    “The effects of this are clearly those of a hallucinogen like Crane’s fear toxin, but rather than simply paralyzing the victim with overwhelming fear it seems to be causing him to react violently.”      
    “I’m going to call Fox in R&D, sir.”  
    “Do so, Alfred. I’ll draw up our home files on Crane’s past modifications of the original toxin.”  
    Bruce looked down at Damian.  
    “I can research the toxin, Father... then you can...”  
    “Thank you, Damian, but I’ll get through the research more quickly than you. Stay here with Jason.”  
    Damian stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at his feet. “Yes, Father.”    
    He stood by Jason’s side, observing his closed but rapidly twitching eyes.  
     _You... you’re the last person on earth I’d like to be watching over. Where was everyone else? Should they be informed?_  
    “Father...?” But Bruce had already disappeared.  
    Damian pulled his cellphone from his pocket and weighed it in his hand. _Would they just worry? Did it really matter?_  
    Jason began muttering again, tossing his head from side to side violently. _That can’t be good for your spinal cord, moron._  
    Damian dropped his phone back in his pocket and, moving to the stand at Jason’s head, placed restraining hands on either side of his face. He scanned the room unsuccessfully for a neck-brace as Jason fought him with jerky movements.  Damian simply kept his hands still, though he could feel his upper arms shaking with the effort and gritted his teeth. After a few seconds, with a large release of breath Jason’s head suddenly fell to one side, his cheek resting in Damian’s right palm.  
    Damian frowned. _If I move my hand will he go back to thrashing?_  
    He removed his left hand and shook it, loosening the muscles. He grudgingly left his right hand where it was.  
     _What kind of nightmares must he be seeing?_ Damian scrunched his eyebrows together. _Oh. Idiot. Of course it had to be that._  
    They had never talked about it with him. Father or Todd, or even Grayson. Even so, Damian had read the files and could imagine all the pieces. The Joker choking on his own laughter. A cruelly simple crowbar. A bloodstained yellow cape. He also knew that he could have all those bits of information and still not know what had really happened. Frankly, he had never liked Jason and Jason had yet to really accept Damian the way the others had. But despite that...  
    “Br-Bruce...?” murmured Jason, his cloudy eyes flickering open.  
    Damian began to pull his hand away but Jason grabbed it in a sudden  burst of strength. Damian nearly jumped at the force in that grip and the way his hand was totally engulfed by Jason’s.  
    “I can’t see...” hissed Jason. “Am I blind?”  
    “I don’t know...” replied Damian, angry at the way his voice wavered slightly.  
    “You’re not Bruce... your hand’s way too small...”  
    “No...”  
    Jason turned slightly to the right and reached his left hand over to place it on Damian’s chest. He clutched the fabric of the jersey before Damian pulled away. He wanted Jason to release his hand too but it was painfully clear that wasn’t going to happen.  
    “Dickie? Is that you?”  
    Damian didn’t answer.  
    “What happened to me? Is he angry? Was it my fault?” Jason asked, his voice sounding strained.  
    Damian bit his lip.  
    “Oh shit, what did I do? Is he here? Please... let me talk to him!”  
    Damian slowly put his other hand on top of Jason’s.      
    “What did I do? If he makes me go... Fuck, I couldn’t bear it! Please, if he won’t see me, talk to him for me!”  
    Jason sobbed dryly a couple times and then pleaded again: “Make him understand! I can never be as good as you, but I can do better than before. I won’t fail him again. Please... where is he?”  
    Damian took a quiet breath, unsure he was doing the correct thing but sure he had to say something.  
    “It’s not your fault,” said Damian quietly. “He’s not angry. He’s never angry with us.”  
    “Not with you maybe...”  
    “He gets angry, but never with us--his Robins. It’s always with himself. For what happens to us.”  
    Jason closed his clouded eyes. His grip on Damian’s hand relaxed to a firm but gentle hold.    
    “Don’t go, Dickie...”  
    Damian swallowed nervously. He looked back toward the door. No one had returned yet... Jason’s breathing steadied and his grip relaxed even more, but Damian stayed there.  
    Alfred walked in a few minutes later and Damian removed his hand from Jason’s grasp in a swift movement.  
    “He came close to consciousness once, but he was hallucinating the whole time. Living in the past apparently. And he may have been sprayed with multiple chemicals, one of which has damaged his eyes.”  
    “Good lord! I never thought to check for other chemicals!” Alfred rushed to the medical cabinet and grabbed more supplies. “If he should lose his eyesight...”  
    “That would be unfortunate.”  
    Damian pushed up the sleeves of the loose jersey and reached to change the IV bag.  
    

  
  
    Jason didn’t recover anything close to full consciousness for about another 36 hours. In that time Bruce informed the rest of the family, and Grayson ended up sitting by Jason’s side for over half of that 36 hours. Tim and Stephanie watched over him together, Cassie took her turn as well, and Alfred and/or Bruce were always checking in on him. Even Barbara came in person to see how he was doing.       
    When Father told Damian to come to the river side to find the serial killers Jason had been tracking he did so gladly. He didn’t want them wandering the streets hurting more people. And he probably relished pummeling the Scarecrow's henchman a bit more than usual. But he never went to the sick bay again.  
    Damian was lying on his bed reading for his summer history assignment when Grayson peeked in.    
    “Hey you! Doing okay?”  
    “I’m not the one who got gassed with an entire arsenal.”  
    “Don’t be mean,” complained Grayson and sat down on Damian’s bed.  
    “Hey!”  
    Grayson just smiled and collapsed backwards next to Damian, who sat up straight in a shot.    
    “I’m reading!” barked Damian.  
    “And I’m exhausted... so you just keep reading and I’ll catch a few---”  
    “Not on my bed you won’t!”  
    “Calm down, Damian. I’m literally so tired I don’t think I can stand up again.”  
    “Why didn’t you go straight to your old room?”  
    “So far away...”  
    “It’s two rooms away!”  
    “So far...”  
    “You’re... you’re...”  
    “This is the part where you say I’m incorrigible and smile fondly. Bruce used to do that a lot, so you should start practicing for when you take over the family business.”  
    Damian slammed his book shut and got off the bed to go sit at his desk.  
    “Since you’re here, I assume the patient has improved significantly. Have you figured out what the hell happened to Todd that has him so messed up?”  
    Grayson shifted to lie on his side and propped his head up with his left arm. “You mean...”  
    “I mean this time, with the Scarecrow. I know he’s had plenty of messing up over the years...” Damian spat out.  
    Grayson frowned slightly. “Damian, are you sure you’re okay? I thought you were up here because you just didn’t care about Jason, but you’re really worked up...”  
    “I’m just annoyed at your inconsiderate disregard for my personal space.”  
    Grayson raised his right eyebrow. “Really? Okay... Well, he is doing a lot better. He woke up and recognized me and when I told him what day it was he started cursing like a sailor.”  
    “What’s the rush?”  
    “The Scarecrow. But since you and Bruce already tracked down two of the three killers I told him to chill. Oracle is pretty sure she’s close to having the location of the third one and we’re probably going after him and Crane soon... but we were kind of waiting for Jason so we could let him have a say.”  
    “That’s stupid. More people will get hurt if we wait.”  
    “Bruce wants him to be able to see this through to the end. And Cassie is keeping an eye on their headquarters anyway.”  
    "Hmmph."  
    “Well, Jay was smart enough to come to Bruce about it so Bruce wants to show him that he respects that. They really did seem like vigilante killings at first. The first four murder victims were convicted felons and the next three people had been accused of crimes but were never convicted. Jay came to Bruce because he didn’t want him to think it was Jay killing people again...”  
    “And this time anyway he wasn’t.”  
    “Instead of simply killing people with their own fear, Crane wants to see what makes them so afraid of others that they kill them. It’s so sick...”  
    “Obviously,” sighed Damian. “But was it the last killer or Crane who attacked Jason?”  
    “Bruce knew from the start it was Crane himself from the level of damage that Jay sustained. And when Jay woke up he told us that he had finally come close to where Crane is hiding and he got jumped by some of his minions. He wasn’t able to fight them all off in time and Crane just started throwing a bunch of weird sprays at him. Altered fear toxin, something like pepper spray, something like ricin... it sounds horrible.”  
    Grayson curled his body in slightly, his arms across his chest.  
    Damian sighed loudly. “But the lunk’s going to survive. As he always does.”  
    “Mm, yeah...” agreed Grayson.  
    Damian opened his book again. “You can take a nap if you want. Just be quiet.”  
    “Thanks, Damian... you really do care.”  
    “Tch.”  
    “But apparently only in secret...”  
    Damian reread a sentence three times while waiting for Grayson to say something else. When Damian turned around to look at him he was asleep, his dark hair falling in front of his face. Damian rested his bandaged right hand on his desk and flexed his fingers. He had claimed it had been injured when he and Bruce had rounded up the serial killers. He had bandaged it up himself because it would be annoying if Alfred asked about the odd bruising. And it would be a disaster if Todd found out.  
      
      
  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This continues where the first part left off, but we depart a bit from Damian's perspective. It all ties back to his character development in the end of course.  
> My use of canon is sparing at best--considering my current opinion of the DCU--but I hope the flashback sort of fits the general Bat Family timeline as I have read it in most places.

    “I just can’t believe that Jason could have lost his eyesight because of this!” exclaimed Stephanie, as she stuffed a last bite of waffle in her mouth.  
    “He could have carried on with his wicked good hearing... He always hears everything I don’t want him to,” added Dick with a sheepish grin.  
    “I heard that, you idiot...” grumbled Jason. He plodded into the breakfast room with a large mug of coffee in his hand, looking more alive (and domestic) than they had seen in a long while.  
    “Jay!”  
    Dick jumped up, arms wide,  and Jason’s face took on a pained expression as he waved his left arm out in front of him. “It’s both too many years late and too many hours early for that.”  
    Tim laughed quietly at Dick’s crestfallen expression as he gathered his dishes.    
    “Take my spot, Jason. I’m heading out,” Tim offered.  
    Jason looked at him for a moment and then gave a curt nod.  
    “And Dick,” Tim added. “You do realize you’re just way too loud when you’re here. Everyone hears everything you say all the time.”  
    “It’s true,” affirmed Stephanie, tidying up her plates. “Not that I mind really, but yeah.”  
    “Oh.” Dick crossed his arms loosely over his chest. “Maybe you’re right...”  
    “He _is_ a performer after all.”  
    Damian stood in the doorway, one hand on his hip. Despite his lesser height he managed to take up the whole doorway, effectively blocking Tim’s exit from the room.  
    “Uh, hi, Damian...” said Tim.  
    “Where are you taking the orange juice, Drake? Put it down.”  
    Tim blew air through his lips in a long-suffering fashion and replaced the orange juice on the table.  
    “Well, _sor-ry_ for wanting to be tidy.”  
    “We weren’t sure when you were going to join the living today,” said Stephanie in Tim’s defense. “You were out really late, weren’t you?”  
    “Have you ever known me to sleep past 9 a.m.?”  
    Dick crossed the room and started gently pushing Damian toward the table. “No, Dami, but nobody’s perfect.”      
    “I’ve told you a million times, Grayson, to stop calling me that!” hissed Damian, glancing at the other faces in the room as his cheeks reddened slightly.        
    Damian slumped in the chair next to Jason, but needn’t have worried about being forced into interacting with him. Jason dragged a newspaper over from the far corner of the table and began reading it without a single glance in his direction. Dick began moving all the food strategically in front of Damian. Tim and Stephanie had already left, stifling grins at Damian’s discomfort. _We’ll see who has the last laugh, Drake, we’ll see..._  
    “So you were patrolling with Bruce yesterday?” Dick asked softly, as if he didn’t want Jason to hear.  
    Damian acknowledged the question with a nod but was busy stacking waffles on his plate. Dick waited, his chin resting lightly in his right palm, until Damian finally answered.  
    “Just the usual stuff, but we had to break up a gang war on south side and that took time.”  
    Damian reached across the table for the maple syrup with his right hand and Dick’s eyebrows jumped.  
    “Your hand’s still injured?”  
    Damian’s bandaged hand retreated quickly with his desired syrup.  
    “Uh, yeah. It’s just a slight sprain.”  
    “That’s no good,” Dick scolded. “Does Bruce know?”  
    “Yeah, of course...”  
    “Damian.” Dick had his arms crossed and he was leaning in over his brother. “That’s your dominant hand. If you had to use it to keep you from falling, would you be able to?”  
    Damian started eating, totally engrossed in his fork movements.  
    “Damian!”  
    “Give it a rest, mother,” growled Jason from behind his paper. “I’m trying to figure out why this city’s financial system hasn’t collapsed on itself yet.”  
    The paper dropped and Jason looked at Dick with steely eyes. “And you know how much I hate the economics section, _Richard_.”  
    Dick blinked a few times, then looked away out the window. After taking a breath, he said, “Damian, you should really let Bruce know.”  
    With that, he picked up a few dishes and left.  
    Damian watched him go, but if he felt guilty it was only for a moment. Jason’s paper rustled and dropped to one side as he reached for his coffee mug. His lower arms were bandaged, and he had yet to get rid of the sticking plasters that were all over his body.  
    “He always pick on you like that?” Jason rumbled from his newspaper corner.  
    Damian swallowed slowly.  
    “He’s always checking in on me more than anyone else... yes.”  
    “Hasn’t changed a bit,” Jason murmured.  
    Damian, fork still in hand, looked up at him questioningly.  
    Jason glanced at him for a second, his eyes seeming softer than normal, then he returned to his newspaper.  
    “Pass the eggs, would’ya, kid?”      
  
  
    “Everyone here?” Dick asked.  
    “Yes, Mr. Rhetorical,” moaned Tim. “We’ve all been here for five minutes.”  
    “Shut up, Drake,” said Damian from right beside him.  
    Tim winced. “Geez, when did you move from the doorway?”  
    “And you call yourself a crimefighter,” sighed Damian, a smug grin on his face.      
    “Look here, _chibi_ \--”  
    “Guys, you’re making Dick sad. Look at that face,” admonished Stephanie, grabbing them both in tight headlocks from behind.  
    “Steph! Okay, stop!”    
    “Let me go!”  
    Dick smiled almost shyly and ran his fingers though his hair. “Well, okay, we’re actually waiting for Bruce...”  
    “I’m here.”  
    Everyone turned toward the fireplace, where Bruce was entering from the room’s secret door.  
    “I was talking to Alfred about the new antidote,” he continued. “It seems that we can get it manufactured easily enough, but in reality it may not be necessary.”  
    “In this case it’s not about _mass_ poisoning to create mass terror,” stated Jason from the other side of the room.  
    Bruce’s eyes flicked over at him, where he lolled in an overstuffed armchair, and then he addressed the whole crew. “Jason is correct. The Scarecrow wants Gotham’s citizens to be afraid of everyone. But only in the sense that he wants them to be afraid of a chosen few. Everyone will be afraid that the person closest to them will turn into a killer.”  
    “Cassandra is still watching the building which we think houses Crane and his closest subordinates. And we have located the third known serial killer, a man nominally known as Daniel Hawthorne. He is a postman in one of the river side neighborhoods. I want Jason and Damian to accompany me to Crane’s location and rendezvous with Cassandra. Dick, you will take Tim and Stephanie to capture Hawthorne. Understood?”  
    Everyone nodded swiftly and silently, although a few looks were exchanged: Tim and Stephanie grinned at each other; Dick glanced at Damian through his bangs; and Damian threw a weak glare at Jason.  
    “Good. Be ready at seven.”  
    Bruce turned to Jason before hitting the catch on the secret door. “Come with me.”  
    Jason jumped up the instant he heard Bruce’s voice and followed him to the cave.  
  
    In the cave, Bruce pulled up the files on Crane’s fear toxin on one of the large computer screens.  
    “You haven’t had a chance to see what they used on you,” he said simply and stepped aside.  
    Jason scanned the medical data, mentally making a note of anything that could interact with other chemicals he might encounter in Gotham’s underbelly. Once done, he nodded at Bruce and moved away, hands in his pockets.  
    Bruce took his usual seat of command at the terminal, back to Jason, and began checking the weather and police scanners. Just as Jason was about to slink all the way into the shadows and leave, Bruce spoke again.     
    “Jason.”  
    The young man moved forward so that he was in Bruce’s peripheral vision.  
    “You did the right thing. I look forward to wrapping this up.”  
    Jason’s mouth opened and closed. He nodded sharply and knew that Bruce had seen his motion.  
    “I’ll see you in a bit,” added Bruce.      
    Jason had to keep himself from leaving at too quick a pace.  
  
    Upstairs, the others were already getting into their gear. Tim was the first one ready, followed closely by Damian, who blamed Grayson for interfering and making him take longer. Stephanie was still being interfered with apparently, because she and Dick seemed to be taking forever.  
    “I don’t know where it is and I kinda miss it,” Dick was saying when they walked down the stairs together.  
    Stephanie nodded sympathetically as she adjusted her arm guards.  
    “But why must you look for it right this instant, Grayson?” yelled Damian from the bottom of the steps. “It’s an old college jersey!”  
     _An old jersey that is currently in my laundry basket..._  
    “Like I said, I miss it... Used to wear it all the time when I first became Nightwing.”  
    Dick and Stephanie reached the bottom of the stairs and she and Tim walked off together to the cave. Damian rolled his eyes at Drake’s receding back and the cheeky victory sign he had flashed with a gloved hand.  
    “Why doesn’t he live at the academy now...?”  
    Dick smiled down at the youngest Wayne, then touched his shoulder.  
    “What?” Damian barked.  
    “Sorry about this morning. I know you know your own limits.” Dick spread his hands wide in front of him. “But I’m the oldest and I can’t not worry about all of you.”  
    “I don’t know why...”  
    “Why I worry? Isn’t it natural?” Dick looked almost confused.  
    Damian shrugged. “I suppose. I mean perhaps about Drake or Stephanie... But Jason?”  
    “Jay?”  
    “Did he come to you when you went off to college?”  
    “What?”  
    “When he became Robin? Before... before he went off after his mother and all that.”  
    Dick looked away, but not before Damian caught the sorrow in his blue eyes.  
    “Yeah, he showed up at my place a few times. Never did figure out how he found out where I lived in the first place...”  
  
                                                                                               *         *         *  
      
    Dick sat at his desk, head in his hands, staring at a criminal psychology book. He was wearing sweatpants and his favorite college jersey, a towel still around his neck from the quick shower he had just taken. He sighed loudly and looked around the room for a granola bar or something--anything--to eat. Sometimes the stuff in these textbooks was old hat, learned in the streets of Gotham, and sometimes it made him wonder if he was really cut out for more than kicking butt and dodging bullets.  
    He was pulling on the drawers of his desk when he heard a noise at the window and froze. The window pane rattled as it was pulled open from the outside and he swiveled into a defensive stance.  
    “Dick...” hissed a young voice.  
    “Jason...?”  
    A boy slipped through the window and jumped over Dick’s bed to stand awkwardly in the middle of the dorm room. He was covered in blood and one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut. Dick immediately put an arm around the boy and half pushed, half carried him to the bathroom he shared with his suite mates. He locked their doors and hoped no one was going to need it for a bit.  
    “Get in the tub. I don’t need blood everywhere,” he said as he found his medical kit.  
    The boy, the edge of his torn cape held tightly in a gloved hand, did as he was told. Dick turned to see him standing there, shivering slightly, eyes unfocused.  
    “Sit down, kid,” Dick said softly. “Jason, sit down.”  
    Jason slid into a crouch on the tub’s floor.  
    “Now, how much of this blood is yours? Where are you hurt?”  
    Dick knew, after the first time that this had happened, that he shouldn’t freak out at the amount of blood. It usually belonged to multiple people.  
    “My shoulder. He stabbed my shoulder...”  
    “Okay. And your eye obviously. He punched your face.”  
    “Yeah, my head hurts...”  
    Dick frowned. “Did you get hit in the head a lot of times?” _If this was a concussion..._  
    “Yeah, but it’s okay... I think I’m okay.”  
    Dick nodded, ignoring the boy’s self-diagnosis, and began to run warm water. He carefully pulled Jason’s shirt off and used the towel he had around his neck to clean the blood off Jason. A heavy dose of pain medication and a few stitches later, Jason looked much more alert. He was wet though, so Dick grabbed another towel and dumped it over his head. He then found an extra pair of sweatpants and a shirt and handed them to Jason.  
    “Dry off and change,” he ordered and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.  
    A few minutes later, Jason emerged from the bathroom, hair in a wet cowlick, two portions of his bangs curling inward over his serious eyes. When the boy stopped in the middle of the room again, looking around him, Dick patted a spot on the bed next to him. Jason sat down gingerly on the bed. He was still holding the towel Dick had tossed him.  
     _Where had Bruce found this guy again? In an alley trying to jack the Batmobile’s tires, right? Damn. The kid had guts, but what was Bruce thinking...?_  
    “So what happened?” Dick asked, keeping his voice low. He handed Jason a bottle of water as he asked and he drank half of it in one go.  
    The boy's voice was steady but quiet when he spoke. “I think... I killed someone. You have to tell Bruce I’m sorry. You have to tell him it was an accident.”  
    Dick blinked at the kid but simply asked, “Who? Where? Why?”  
    “A wife-beater. In the south side. He was going to kill her... he was killing her. She hadn’t done anything.” His voice was rising and Dick could see his grip on the water bottle and the towel were getting tighter. “I was on patrol with Bruce and we split up, like we do sometimes, and he said to just go home afterward. We’d meet at the cave. But I heard her screaming and I went to see what... He wasn’t even drunk, the bastard was totally sober. But he just started hitting her, punching her in her face. So I broke in the window and got in his way..." The boy laughed under his breath. "Oh I got in his way alright. Got this to prove it.” He smiled crookedly up at Dick, pointing at his now purple eye.  
    Dick nodded and started slowly rubbing Jason’s back, trying to keep him grounded. _This kid looks like he could just lose it anytime..._  
    Jason was smiling as he continued, but his eyes were of someone deeply afraid. “At first I thought I could just scare him off, but he was dock worker or something and he came at me with a knife. So I had to fight him. And she was screaming at us. Both of us. _Don’t hurt him_ , she said, and I couldn’t tell who she meant. I turned to her to see who she meant, because she couldn’t mean him, right? And that’s when he stabbed me in the shoulder. And she started crying real hard then. So I knew, I knew she must have meant me, right?” Jason looked up at Dick for reassurance so all he could do was nod.  
    “So I yanked the knife from my shoulder and I kicked him against the wall and I stabbed him. A couple times maybe, he was big, you know. He was way bigger than me. And I had to be sure that he wouldn’t hurt her anymore.” He nodded, mostly to himself.    
    “He stopped moving... and I dropped the knife. She was still crying and she waved me away when I asked if she was okay. I didn’t want to get blood all over the place because my blood... So I just left.”  
    Jason drank the rest of the water and dropped the bottle on the floor.  
    “You haven’t been back to the cave--”  
    “I killed him!” Jason said, voice hard. “Bruce will be furious. He can’t see that it was the only option. You have to make him see.”  
    “Jason...”  
    “You can’t let him kick me out!” Jason was pleading now. “I know you think like he does, but you’re... you’re not him. You can see the situation I was in, you can feel it, can’t you? He can’t feel what we do. Or he doesn’t, I don’t know.”  
    “I’m not sure what I can say...”  
    “He’ll listen to you. Your...”  
    Jason looked away from Dick and plucked at the shirt he was wearing, its sleeves way too large for his slenderly muscular arms.    
    “Don’t you just hate me?” he asked in a low voice. “Don’t you regret leaving him with me?”  
    Dick grabbed Jason by the shoulders and shook him lightly. “No! I do not! I never have and I never will!”  
    Jason let his head fall to the side, not looking at Dick’s face. “Really? Because I would if I were you. I would hate me so much. I’d want to get rid of me.”  
    “Jason, no. No one wants you gone.  And I was never perfect. There is no perfect Robin. There’s only the best Robin you can be. The best Robin for him.”  
    “And if that’s not good enough?”  
    “You can be enough, I know you can.”  
    “How do you know that?”  
    “Because, if I could pull it off, you can. I was a sad, scared kid filled with this anger that was going to crush me. I had no street smarts, just a bunch of circus tricks. And he helped me, like he’s trying to with you. Helped me survive and _more_...”  
    Jason met his gaze for the first time in a while. Dick thought his eyes looked older than the rest of him by quite a few years.     
    “Jason, I know a bit of how you feel... about your parents. And he does too. He _can_ feel, you know. He just doesn’t show it. Ever heard the phrase, still waters run deep? That’s Bruce to a tee. He’ll be in total turmoil about something and you’ll never know it. He does it on purpose and it’s maddening as hell.”  
    The boy raised an eyebrow and Dick noticed that he had let go of the towel some time ago. “Really?”  
    “Yeah, ask Alfred if you want. You can trust him.”  
    “The old guy?”  
    “That old guy knows more about Bruce than anyone else in the world, so yeah.”  
    Jason nodded but hunched his shoulders over.  
    “But none of this matters, because Bruce is going to flip out about this dead punk.”  
    “Do you know that he's dead? For sure?”  
    “I stabbed him like seven times.”  
    “Geez, really?”  
    Jason nodded and yawned. Dick pushed him gently down on his side, holding him there when Jason tried to sit back up again.  
    “You need to rest, so that when we talk to Bruce you won’t say stupid things.”  
    Jason glared up at Dick but after a moment his body relaxed, and he stayed on the bed when Dick rose from it. He was soon fast asleep, his lanky body surrounded by the detritus of the vigilante college student’s life.  
  
                                                                                                  *       *        *  
   
    “Jason was always a little unpredictable when it came to wife-beaters and rapists. This may be my psychology classes talking, but at that point in his life he saw every woman in danger as someone who could be his mother," Dick explained. "But in the end, that particular guy was still alive.”  
    “After being stabbed seven times?” asked Damian, suspiciously.  
    “Jason wasn’t kidding when he said the guy was bigger than he was.” Dick sighed, and adjusted his mask. "He sure was rotten at picking his fights."  
    “So father didn’t force him out?”  
    “No, never did. And Jason got his anger under control and he was doing mostly okay in the end.”  
    “Until his mother came into the picture.”  
    “Well, yeah, but you know mothers...”  
    “ _Tch_.”  
    Dick grinned and stretched his arms out over his head. “You’re going to hate this, but you remind me of him sometimes.”  
    Damian gave him a dark look. “Enough talk, Grayson. It’s nearly time.”  
    “Be safe out there.”  
    “Worry about yourself.”      
    Dick smiled as Damian trotted ahead of him and down the stairs. Just as the cape disappeared from his sight, a tall shadow fell over him from behind. He looked up the steps to see Jason and grinned.  
    “Jay...”  
    “Richard.”  
    The man walked quickly past him, mouth in a firm line, eyes dark, and tan coat fluttering in his wake. _The coat's not quite the same as that yellow cape_ , thought Dick with a wistful smile, _but at least he’s here.  
_


End file.
